Exercise One-
Post on your blog whether or not you ever been a member of a book club. Also discuss whether you prefer joining a in-person or online book club.
I have never been a member of a book club. It usually takes me a couple of months to finish a book and the pressure of reading a book by a certain time makes it difficult to enjoy. It might be fun to try out an online book club.
Exercise Two
After viewing the resources above, what ideas come to mind for implementing a book club into your library. Post your thoughts and ideas onto your blog. Using one of the "live" book club resources, also look for a title that your book club could discuss.
My idea would be to have a revolving genre book club. One month romance, the next thriller, the next mystery therefore you might catch different groups each month. In Library Thing , I looked up the mystery writer, Deborah Crombie. They had a list of her upcoming appearances at libraries and bookstores. One was Murder by the Book in Houston on June 25. I picked her book Dreaming of the Bones to discuss in a book club. It won some awards and had good reviews. Since it is just one in a series readers may want to continue reading her other titles after finishing this one.
Exercise Three
Search for one of the books you selected in the first post on at least two of the social networks. Do the ratings for the book differ on each site, or are they similar? Did you find anything surprising?
I only saw "Dreaming of Bones" listed on Shelfari and everyone gave it 5 stars. It was not listed on Goodreads or Reading Group Choices. I didn't see anything surprising.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
BOOKS, READERS AND BEYOND: #53 Finding Books Online
Exercise One
Find and report on your blog the three booksellers that are closest to your branch or facility. Do they have an online presence? If they do, please describe it in twenty-five words or less on your blog.
B. Dalton Booksellers- BookStop on Alabama, Borders on Alabama at Kirby and Brazos Bookstore on Bissonnet. B Dalton turned out to be Barnes and Noble website. Borders quick search didn't work but I did find a paperback of Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio by using the advanced search. Brazos Bookstore had an interesting website giving staff and customers reading picks along with store suggestions. They listed upcoming events. I was able to find books about Houston I had not seen before.
Exercise Two
Search for one of the books you selected in the previous post. Is it available from a bookstore? Which one, and at what price? (In dollars or in other books.) Can you find an eBook or Audio version online? On which site did your find it? (If you can’t find it online, please list in your blog the sites you searched.)
Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio was available from Borders in mass market paperback for $7.99 The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost by Brad Strickland was currently out of stock in Barnes and Nobel but I could pick up 19 used copies for as little as $1.99. Borders did not have it listed. I checked Amazon for online or audio and found neither for Grinning Ghost. The Greg Bear book, Darwin's Radio was available to read on a Kindle for $6.64 from Amazon. Audio CD was listed for $88.67 also a downloadable copy was available through "Audible" for $13.13.
Exercise Three
Download an eBook. Spend at least half an hour reading it. Write about your experience on your blog. How did it compare with reading a traditional print copy? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of each format?
This exercise required me to browse some of the free ebooks online websites in order to find a book I wanted to read. Barleby.com had the Harvard Classics. I first chose a Robert Burns poetry book but found it was hard to tell if I was looking at a book or just summoning up a poem from the Internet. Then I clicked on the link mentioned called 20+ Places for Public Domain Ebooks . This was very helpful because it not only listed the URLs for public domain ebooks but gave a brief description to guide me. PlanetPDF was listed as having " a decent sized collection of classic novels all in PDF format". I browsed the titles until I found "Emma" by Jane Austen. After increasing the font I found I could read it easily on the computer screen. One advantage for using an ebook would be if all the library copies are checked out and student needs to read it for an assignment. It's cheaper than purchasing from a book store. Disadvantages are that you must have Internet access and a computer in order to read. Not everyone has this equipment at their house. When reading a book online you can't really see how far you've gone. I enjoy seeing if I am a third through or halfway by looking at where the bookmark falls in the book. Reading a paperback in the backyard or at the beach does not work with an online book. I enjoy reading on the plane or while waiting in airport and doctor offices. Paperbacks fit easily in my purse and I don't need Internet access or a laptop.
Find and report on your blog the three booksellers that are closest to your branch or facility. Do they have an online presence? If they do, please describe it in twenty-five words or less on your blog.
B. Dalton Booksellers- BookStop on Alabama, Borders on Alabama at Kirby and Brazos Bookstore on Bissonnet. B Dalton turned out to be Barnes and Noble website. Borders quick search didn't work but I did find a paperback of Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio by using the advanced search. Brazos Bookstore had an interesting website giving staff and customers reading picks along with store suggestions. They listed upcoming events. I was able to find books about Houston I had not seen before.
Exercise Two
Search for one of the books you selected in the previous post. Is it available from a bookstore? Which one, and at what price? (In dollars or in other books.) Can you find an eBook or Audio version online? On which site did your find it? (If you can’t find it online, please list in your blog the sites you searched.)
Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio was available from Borders in mass market paperback for $7.99 The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost by Brad Strickland was currently out of stock in Barnes and Nobel but I could pick up 19 used copies for as little as $1.99. Borders did not have it listed. I checked Amazon for online or audio and found neither for Grinning Ghost. The Greg Bear book, Darwin's Radio was available to read on a Kindle for $6.64 from Amazon. Audio CD was listed for $88.67 also a downloadable copy was available through "Audible" for $13.13.
Exercise Three
Download an eBook. Spend at least half an hour reading it. Write about your experience on your blog. How did it compare with reading a traditional print copy? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of each format?
This exercise required me to browse some of the free ebooks online websites in order to find a book I wanted to read. Barleby.com had the Harvard Classics. I first chose a Robert Burns poetry book but found it was hard to tell if I was looking at a book or just summoning up a poem from the Internet. Then I clicked on the link mentioned called 20+ Places for Public Domain Ebooks . This was very helpful because it not only listed the URLs for public domain ebooks but gave a brief description to guide me. PlanetPDF was listed as having " a decent sized collection of classic novels all in PDF format". I browsed the titles until I found "Emma" by Jane Austen. After increasing the font I found I could read it easily on the computer screen. One advantage for using an ebook would be if all the library copies are checked out and student needs to read it for an assignment. It's cheaper than purchasing from a book store. Disadvantages are that you must have Internet access and a computer in order to read. Not everyone has this equipment at their house. When reading a book online you can't really see how far you've gone. I enjoy seeing if I am a third through or halfway by looking at where the bookmark falls in the book. Reading a paperback in the backyard or at the beach does not work with an online book. I enjoy reading on the plane or while waiting in airport and doctor offices. Paperbacks fit easily in my purse and I don't need Internet access or a laptop.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
BOOKS , READERS AND BEYOND #52 What to Read?
1. How do you find a read-alike? Pick a title by one of your favorite authors. Search Novelist Plus to find a read-alike. Now perform the same search using two of the other sites listed above. Were the results the same? Compare the two searches and the results in your blog post.
To find a "read-alike" go to the database Novelist and type in an author's name. After choosing the correct author, they usually list many with the same or similiar names, click on it's name. The author profile will appear with a tab at the top "read- alike". Click on the tab and a number of similar titles will be listed . I typed in Elizabeth George into each and also Dick Francis. The Morton Grove Public's FictionL List had lots of lists but I had to scan through all to see if my authors were there. I never saw them listed. What I should read next seemed fast and easy. None of the authors or titles matched any I had pulled from Novelist. For Dick Francis one author appeared in both. The Library Booklists and Bibliographies lead me to Mayo County library's read- alike section. They had Francis but not George.
2. Using one of the resources listed above find two books suitable for a fourth grade girl interested in animals and another two books for her thirteen year old brother who is interested in ghost stories. Post which resource you used and the books you located.
Using Novelist basic search screen I typed in "animals" and checked the box to limit results to "older kids". Then I sorted the list by popularity. The top two were E. B. White's Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. Both fell in the fourth grade reading level using the Lexile score. Also Black Beauty by Anna Sewell fell in the top of a fourth graders reading lexile range. All three titles are found in HCPL.
For the 13 yr old brother I found several titles. Using the advanced search I typed in the subject "ghosts" and limited it to "teens" and "male". I also clicked "Novelist Best" hoping to narrow it to popular titles. One was "Ghost Canoe" by Will Hobbs about a 14 year old boy in the Pacific northwest. Another "Kit's Wilderness" by David Almond about a 13 yr old boy living with his grandfather in a coal mining town in England that is haunted with ghosts from the past. I also found a nonfiction title "Ghost Liners, exploring the worlds greatest lost ships" by Robert Ballard.
3. A customer tells you that he's read every book written by Dean Koontz and asks you to find an author who writes similar books. Using two of the sites listed above, find three new authors to recommend to your customer. Post the sites you used and the results in your blog.
Novelist Plus suggested Greg Bear, Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon.
Wake County Public Library through a link from Library Book List suggested:
Greg Bear, Douglas Clegg and Mathew Delang.
Novelist was easy to use, the Library Book List had a search box but did not lead you to the page, so you had to read through every author to find the link. Once found it lead you direct to another link or the Wake County Public Library, North Carolina website.
4. A customer has read Alanna: the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce. She would like to read the other books in the series in order. Using one of the above resources, post the series title, the order of the books in the series, and the resource you used.
Song of the Lioness quartet
Book 1 Alanna: The first adventure
Book 2 In the hand of the goddess
Book 3 The woman who rides like a man
Book 4 Lioness rampant
I found this in "What's Next?, Books in a Series. http://ww2.kdl.org/libcat/WhatsNextNEW.asp
To find a "read-alike" go to the database Novelist and type in an author's name. After choosing the correct author, they usually list many with the same or similiar names, click on it's name. The author profile will appear with a tab at the top "read- alike". Click on the tab and a number of similar titles will be listed . I typed in Elizabeth George into each and also Dick Francis. The Morton Grove Public's FictionL List had lots of lists but I had to scan through all to see if my authors were there. I never saw them listed. What I should read next seemed fast and easy. None of the authors or titles matched any I had pulled from Novelist. For Dick Francis one author appeared in both. The Library Booklists and Bibliographies lead me to Mayo County library's read- alike section. They had Francis but not George.
2. Using one of the resources listed above find two books suitable for a fourth grade girl interested in animals and another two books for her thirteen year old brother who is interested in ghost stories. Post which resource you used and the books you located.
Using Novelist basic search screen I typed in "animals" and checked the box to limit results to "older kids". Then I sorted the list by popularity. The top two were E. B. White's Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. Both fell in the fourth grade reading level using the Lexile score. Also Black Beauty by Anna Sewell fell in the top of a fourth graders reading lexile range. All three titles are found in HCPL.
For the 13 yr old brother I found several titles. Using the advanced search I typed in the subject "ghosts" and limited it to "teens" and "male". I also clicked "Novelist Best" hoping to narrow it to popular titles. One was "Ghost Canoe" by Will Hobbs about a 14 year old boy in the Pacific northwest. Another "Kit's Wilderness" by David Almond about a 13 yr old boy living with his grandfather in a coal mining town in England that is haunted with ghosts from the past. I also found a nonfiction title "Ghost Liners, exploring the worlds greatest lost ships" by Robert Ballard.
3. A customer tells you that he's read every book written by Dean Koontz and asks you to find an author who writes similar books. Using two of the sites listed above, find three new authors to recommend to your customer. Post the sites you used and the results in your blog.
Novelist Plus suggested Greg Bear, Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon.
Wake County Public Library through a link from Library Book List suggested:
Greg Bear, Douglas Clegg and Mathew Delang.
Novelist was easy to use, the Library Book List had a search box but did not lead you to the page, so you had to read through every author to find the link. Once found it lead you direct to another link or the Wake County Public Library, North Carolina website.
4. A customer has read Alanna: the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce. She would like to read the other books in the series in order. Using one of the above resources, post the series title, the order of the books in the series, and the resource you used.
Song of the Lioness quartet
Book 1 Alanna: The first adventure
Book 2 In the hand of the goddess
Book 3 The woman who rides like a man
Book 4 Lioness rampant
I found this in "What's Next?, Books in a Series. http://ww2.kdl.org/libcat/WhatsNextNEW.asp
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